The Crash: Baker: Wait And See

A seven-year veteran of the Reagan Administration, Treasury Secretary James Baker is no stranger to crisis. Rarely, however, has he been placed so squarely in the vortex. On Friday, Baker met over breakfast in the Treasury Secretary's ornate dining room with TIME's international economics correspondent, Christopher Redman. For 90 minutes they discussed the week's tumultuous events. Excerpts from the interview:

Q. There have been accusations that your remarks about interest rates were ill-timed and helped trigger the Monday crash. Is that so?

A. What triggered it was not my remarks but a front-page story in one of our major newspapers. It...